Guild Wars 2

The quickness nerf means that the next patch leaves room for toning down bunkers without the huge backlash it would have caused this patch. It’s frustrating having the changes be so slow though..

Global quickness nerf means they can tone up individual skills/weapons that need it without huge backlash while at the same time toning down key bunker skills. This game needs to be about avoiding damage, not stunbreaking every time somebody pops quickness on you.

Grimvar.9185:

Leuca.5732:

What this does is give them ample room to change weapons that need it, e.g. Longbow. They have an opportunity now to decrease channel times/increase damage without making the skills overpowered. I think this will prove to be a good change in the long run; we just have to get the changes that this makes room for. Still, the nerf to quickness would definitely justify a 1 second increase to our pet swap trait, now that quickness is a great deal weaker.

You seem to forget SB has also been nerfed twice over now with this patch and its quickness nerf. They are crippling an already subpar dps build with this and you still say they are going to change the ranger for good? You are kidding right?

Are you literally so desperate that you will be happy with any change to the ranger even if they are nerfs? Are you literally going to keep saying “don’t worry guys they will make ranger good now”? You are deluded.

Let me quote myself for a moment..

What this does is give them ample room to change weapons that need it

Ok, go petition for a shortbow fix now.

I am certainly not deluded enough to think that this fixes the game, but I think it’s a step in the right direction. Instagib damage doesn’t promote interesting play unless you are loaded up on stunbreakers. Global burst nerfing means they can buff individual skills more readily now, as well as tone down overpowered bunker skills on certain professions without worrying about huge backlash.

You could stand to be a bit more polite.

What this does is give them ample room to change weapons that need it, e.g. Longbow. They have an opportunity now to decrease channel times/increase damage without making the skills overpowered. I think this will prove to be a good change in the long run; we just have to get the changes that this makes room for. Still, the nerf to quickness would definitely justify a 1 second increase to our pet swap trait, now that quickness is a great deal weaker.

OGDeadHead.8326:

Leuca.5732:

Instead of gut-reacting to tell them to increase the duration, we should try playing with it as is for a few weeks.

You mean “we should try playing with it as is for a few months”?

(and then we forget how it used to be, problem solved!)

I have to admit, I feel much less dangerous with the trait as is now. Just some basic testing shows that it’s not even long enough for a stomp or even two auto attack cycles with melee weapons.

Considering quickness is now significantly weaker, I’m reconsidering what I just said; I think the extra second wouldn’t hurt that much, since it’s much easier to interrupt your target with the buff on.

Instead of gut-reacting to tell them to increase the duration, we should try playing with it as is for a few weeks.

TheGuy.3568:

Now not to be unfair but might sacking like you said is a global “problem” but do you realize how many traits you would have to nerf around how many classes Might lets not even mention the food. Might stacks are part of the game we aren’t the only ones with access.

Heal slot vs heal rotation. Passive healing is strong across the board (look at ranger bunker, signet of malice , even the lowly Healing Signet is ok for PvE (a lil weak in PvP). I think many players forget ele is designed to heal and its is the nature of the class. We are by no means the best passive healer in the game (see ranger bunker) but we are designed to heal just like guardians its part of the class and given the DPS DPS DPS all the time nature of the game it provides the parity necessary. Honorable mention to Engi bunker if they sit in one spot with super elixir (and a few other traits) they probably have the best regen in the game.

Healing is just part of the game.

You could definitely tone down might stacking on professions that keep up huge stacks with little effort and it would not throw off the game that much. Reducing might stacks from the warrior greatsword trait by making it a % chance on critical hit is an example; you could also tone down the sheer number of blast finishers elementalists have on some sets. It would not require an entire rework of the trait system, so please don’t exaggerate.

A ranger bunker is better at self-preservation by a tad, but it cannot match the aoe healing an elementalist puts out (even without a cleric amulet), nor can a guardian. I’m fine with elementalists being good at self preservation via damage avoidance/good self healing, but the sheer number of aoe heals they get on sets that were clearly designed around damage capabilities seems a bit absurd. An elementalist using s/d has a potential aoe healing rotation that rivals (and often surpasses) the healing slot skills of other professions, and it takes little effort on their part to accomplish this.

To sum it up: Might and healing are part of the game; let’s make them reasonable parts of the game.

Bas.7406:

Leuca.5732:

The problem is this build has absolutely no significant aoe damage, making it subpar to pretty much every other profession’s power-based builds, and inferior to the aoe condition capabilities that other necromancers have. Axe channel has garbage ability to follow targets if they walk to either side of you, and the auto attack is still worthless, even when it crits.

It’s a fun build in theory and nice when you get the crits you want on your target, but to be blunt, it’s mediocre at best; power necromancers are still in a sorry state.

Once again this is simply a pve build, and we have incredible aoe if you haven’t seen the videos take a look at the amount of damage you can output with wells (on a 35 second CD).

Getting some aoe burst then reverting to exclusively single target damage is not incredible if you ask me. Sacrificing all your utility slots just to accomplish this only further proves my point.

Gaudrath.6725:

No, no and no. ONE Earth #1 and you just applied 3s of weakness. This means every non-critical hit is a glancing blow which only does 50% damage. Now do you think an overall 50% damage reduction is something to be neglected in favor of a little more DPS?

Wrong. It’s 50% chance to be glancing, but weakness is still not to be taken lightly when applied in long duration. It’s also worth noting that earth auto attack is a 100% chance combo finisher. I agree with the rest of what you said.

Moving along, it is important to consider that staff elementalists still have decent ability to stack might. With Evasive Arcana a staff ele can keep up about 10 stacks of might without a sigil of battle. This combines well with their ability to apply large aoe bleeds/burns while dealing aoe damage.

The problem is this build has absolutely no significant aoe damage, making it subpar to pretty much every other profession’s power-based builds, and inferior to the aoe condition capabilities that other necromancers have. Axe channel has garbage ability to follow targets if they walk to either side of you, and the auto attack is still worthless, even when it crits.

It’s a fun build in theory and nice when you get the crits you want on your target, but to be blunt, it’s mediocre at best; power necromancers are still in a sorry state.

Kazhiel.8194:

wads.5730:

shatter builds will always be better in pvp, compared to phantasm builds.

not only in terms of damage, but utility

I’d disagree .

I respectfully disagree as well. When phantasms get a lucky proc from signet of illusions right away the game instantly becomes absolute hell for your target, regardless of profession. Fix the signet, both in application and health increase (which could stand to be 75 and not 50%) and phantasm builds will be in a much better state.

Wisler.9485:

It doesn’t “take a few seconds to apply”.
Signet of Illusion “pulses” every 10 seconds (at least I think it’s 10) and applies its effect with every puls (but only once per illusion). So you can summon your illusion and have the increased health nearly immediatly or you may have to wait a few seconds.
Additionally it doesn’t increase illusion health by 50% but by 200% and I honestly have no idea how it stacks with the trait that increases illusion health.
If this effects are intended or not, only ANet knows, but since it is inconsistent with the tooltips it is listed as a bug.

As far as I know they stack independently of each other, but the 200% bug is clearly there, or Phantasmal Defender would not suck up 15k+ damage from an ele I tested it on. It needs to pulse every second and get increase to 75% health. Passives should not be useless, but they should not be that stupidly strong when you get a lucky proc.

The recharge hit to RtL was all that was necessary. What they have to deal with now is might stacking (this is a global problem as it should require more teamwork imo) and the heal rotation vs heal slot skills. A few elements across a few weapons have a select few skills that are useless (earth staff 4 for example), but the ele isn’t in a terrible state. I think the staff’s single target skills could use some more oomph, but that’s just me; the single target CC skills are plain awful as is and are really just window dressing as their pathing sucks.

Oolune.4357:

Hmmm. I think an immobile stealth element on Ranger would be awesome. However… a 15-20 second immobile stealth seems utterly useless.

Then make it slower than normal stealth movement.

I thought a long-duration stealth that auto revealed when somebody got closer than 400 or 600 range of you would have been interesting.

Daishi.6027:

Didn’t they fix the signet to 50% a few patches ago? I wouldn’t know I don’t play 3 button stick my fingers and go “lalalalala I can’t hear you” and win phant builds.

But although I do agree the power comes from the consistency I still think it’s stupid to shave off damage for the sake of balancing an AoE of a weapon people may or may not use. Clones die easy (I guess without illusion signet lol) and setting up 3 for max dmg in a team fight with decent aoes firing everywhere while timing it with a 12 second C/D is not nerf worthy. IMO

And I agree fix other things before you tamper with a “not a problem” class mechanic.

As for blurred frenzy. I’m sure that’s our compensation for being as squishy as a thief with significantly less stealth.

Nope, they didn’t fix it, or if they did the bug is back again. I’m pretty sure this ele did about 15k damage to phantasmal defender earlier today, maybe more.

The mesmer community will throw a fit when they finally fix signet of illusions to pulse every second and give 50% more health as intended.

The sheer frequency of shatters are what make them strong, but I don’t think they are really a huge problem anymore. There are other mechanics that need to be addressed more urgently than shatter cats. Signet of Illusions for example, as well as Blurred Frenzy. Illusions do not need 200% more health from a passive; this bug needs fixing. As for the latter, I don’t know what they were thinking putting an invuln that spammable on any profession; it should evade imo. In other news; torch still needs help, and scepter is too slow to be a reliable weapon anywhere but spvp.

AirWick.1769:

Dagger off hand as a powerbuild is wasted with your dagger as a mainhand. You can get alot more hits in with warhorn’s locust swarm cripple.

I rather enjoy the condition transfer from deathly swarm, but I absolutely hate enfeebling blood. :/

Even when I’m running something with a tad more burst I end up with about 15 in water and arcana respectively. I can’t pass up at least some self healing and a reduction in elemental recharge. High spec in air magic makes up for the low base power as it has many traits that increase damage by meeting certain conditions. Fire magic is really only good for the 10% increase while attuned to fire; anything else can be accomplished via other means.

It is important to note that 1h sword’s first and third attack chains cleave. This allows you to get up to 3 stacks of might on your pet from one attack chain.

Eliteseraph.4970:

Leuca.5732:

At least 25 in Water Magic and 30 in Arcana and you’re pretty much set. I put knight’s stats on my ele for more critical hits+toughness since healing is already crazy good on s/d. Scepter of Bloodlust and Dagger of either Energy or Battle; your preference.

Not exactly ‘detailed’, but I think I get the general idea. Thanks!

It doesn’t need to be super detailed; as long as your toughness/power are relatively high, the healing will take care of itself because of your traits. I just like knight’s stats because it gets decent precision. You can opt to use Soldier, Cleric, etc.

Eliteseraph.4970:

Leuca.5732:

Or just run bunker specced s/d and stack 25 might on your entire team. You’ll heal their bars more than their own healing skills and they’ll simply melt everything for you. Your own damage will be great too once you get your stacks going.

I’d be interested in seeing a detailed breakdown of that build, with gear. Is there a quick link to it, or can you post it here?

At least 25 in Water Magic and 30 in Arcana and you’re pretty much set. I put knight’s stats on my ele for more critical hits+toughness since healing is already crazy good on s/d. Scepter of Bloodlust and Dagger of either Energy or Battle; your preference.

Swiftwynd.1685:

Leuca.5732:

Or just run bunker specced s/d and stack 25 might on your entire team. You’ll heal their bars more than their own healing skills and they’ll simply melt everything for you. Your own damage will be great too once you get your stacks going.

ANNND thats not what this is about

If you have external sources of might, burning, and vulnerability, this will be the highest damage you can personally ever put out in gw2 (likely i believe but I’d need comparisons).

That is to say, while you could be the groups might stacker, nothing wrong with another ele or other profession fulfilling that role. Additionally, this spec can STILL reach 25 might stacks for the group by itself if others provide fire fields.

Of course this is what it’s about. He’s doing a LOT of damage with huge might stacks on constant uptime, and healing the crap out of his team. That sounds pretty optimal compared to some one trick pony build that attempts to blow things up but dies if it gets blinked at. He said he wanted optimal; the fact is that ele traits aren’t great in Fire Magic, and mediocre once you get to grandmaster Air traits, leaving him with the ability to stack lots of boons and get a damage increase per boon while increasing his survivability by a crap-ton.

haviz.1340:

Stacking mights requires bunker spec?

No, but you heal the crap out of your team and you don’t die, plus your entire team melts things because of might. Berserker stats are almost redundant when you have 25 might.

My problem with the pvp in this game is not that Anet isn’t trying; they certainly are and there are things that evidence this all over the place. My problem is that they didn’t learn from quite a few balancing mistakes that were made in GW1, and either ignored or didn’t prioritize a few glaring issues with GW2 during beta events, and some of those issues persist even today.

Or just run bunker specced s/d and stack 25 might on your entire team. You’ll heal their bars more than their own healing skills and they’ll simply melt everything for you. Your own damage will be great too once you get your stacks going.

Crit damage isn’t amazing on rangers but it’s definitely there. Gotta work with what you have.

Alpha.1308:

or just make it fire off multiple times (3-5)
racking up that much Vulnerability (plus it’s normal damage) might actually pressure someone into standing in it or leaving (cap points) much like Dragon’s Tooth does now for cap points,since all it does is tickle those affected currently
along with actually being useful in damage,the vulnerability in pve would make it usable

This is an interesting concept. I would advocate pulsing vulnerability, with increasing numbers per pulse. 3 seconds, one pulse per second, with 1, 2, and 4 (random values) stacks of vulnerability per respective pulse. Give it respectable (not super high) damage and you’ve got a solid punisher for players who like to stand still and tank things instead of moving like they’re supposed to.

Intigo.1653:

It’s a near-worthless skill in its current implementation (at least PvP-wise, maybe the Vuln is handy for PvE).

It should have a ~10s cooldown and go off pretty close to instantly instead. Such low cooldowns are useless for us anyway.

I disagree; I think it should have its area and damage increased, with a 3/4 second cast time. The delay after casting is fine as long as the enemy is punished for standing still for it. As is, people don’t really have a reason to avoid a single shatterstone, or even two.

Part of having a pet is using your skills to enhance its efficacy, but I do see your point.

milo.6942:

re: your points
1) yes. energy is a secondary resource that skills can alter. it adds depth to play.
2) the problem i’m addressing is one of pacing and matchups. gw2 skills are balanced with long cool downs, elites in particular. in order to justify calling a skill “elite”, it must be powerful. if it is powerful, it must be balanced. the only way to balance a powerful skill is to make its recharge high. if this were gw1, we could also balance the skill with higher energy costs, but lower cool downs (e.g. searing flames).

My point was that the skill was created around energy in this instance. Had the energy system not existed, the skill would have had a totally different function/balancing mechanism. We can use telegraphing as an example. Telegraphing was not as visual in GW1, but it’s extremely present (in most cases) in GW2. A lack of energy does not inherently mean a lack of depth. I am not saying an energy system is bad, or that it would ruin GW2, rather that at this point it is unnecessary; much of the balance issue could be fixed without implementing energy as a resource.

You can look to GW1’s meteor shower as an excellent example of a skill being balanced almost solely around cast time/recharge and not energy cost, in a system where energy exists. 25 energy is rather insigificant when the cast time/recharge were 5 sec/60 sec respectively. The skill was also very obviously telegraphed compared to other skills. The exhaustion effect was added additionally to punish players for cancel casting, making the 25 energy cost again, rather pointless; the skill wouldn’t have been much more trouble had its cost been reduced to 15, or even 10 energy; you would have simply seen a little more use from non-ele primaries.

While I see what you’re getting at, I find that your argument does not address real balancing issues because-

1. Some skills in GW1 only had their functions because there was an energy system, e.g. mindblast.

2. Some skills in GW2 work similarly to GW1 skills but are balanced around recharge rather successfully. Nobody denies that a hard hit from Flame Grab is strong and a good finishing blow from an ele specced to deal damage, but its recharge makes it hard to call OP.

CriSPeH.8512:

I understand that it is very annoying and probally somewhat demoralizing to get yanked around and possibly bursted if you arent ready or quick enough. But that is no reason to call for nerfs or say things are Overpowered.
We have a single target pull that needs LoS to work and any elevation in the terrain can effect how the pull works, as opposed to certain other skills that can grp pull ppl they cant even see up and over ledges.

Honestly, it is one of the more powerful pulling skills in the game. Look at necromancers for example; their pull is a joke at best. I don’t think it should necessarily be nerfed, but other skills in the game still need lots of improvement by comparison.

I haven’t read most of this thread, but my main issue with mesmers and thieves are that they reserve exclusive rights to mess with an already messy targeting system. This is a huge boon that really shouldn’t be dismissed. It was poor design if you ask me.

The only problem is that Magnet can literally only be avoided by a well-timed dodge or invuln. You cannot time blocks/aegis against it, nor can you stealth after it activates and expect to avoid it. The engineer can even lack LoS at the beginning of activation and still hit you at the end if he dips out at the last second. It’s not a huge issue, but it’s there.

Burnfall.9573:

Leuca, Phantasms having more than 5-6k health, show evidence? Phantasms are easy to kill in the first or second hit, even i as a mesmer don’t have that health pool and I don’t get killed in 1-2 hits. Obvious, you are making this up.
And hhary, i need your proof as well about zerkers hitting 3-4 damage each.
Why these false information?. As i had stated above, any class can counter mesmers. All my proof are on each class forums and its users posting them on Youtube. Only if you’re theif, you won’t need too because all it takes to be a theif is spamming 1-2 keys, by only using your main skills, easy kill. Only classes which can hit per 3-5k and more are theif and warrior.

Base health for a phantasm at level 80 is a bit more than 2100. Factor in trait that gives 20% more health to phantasms to bring it to about 2500, then Signet of Ilusions, which currently bugs to give 200% more health.

After factoring health in, you then have to take into account that many phantasm mesmers stack toughness now, which is inherited by their illusions. It’s a particularly nasty combination when the signet procs on illusions immediately after summoning, leaving any profession without reliable aoe damage in the dust.

I wouldn’t have a problem with phantasm builds if the above were not true.

Kultas Sunstrider.9218:

wow, a pvp player that is actually trying to improve himself searching help on forums instead of just QQing about balance and “OP” skills.
Impressive.

Honestly, I’ve always thought that the main problem with heartseeker was the distance traveled vs initiative expended, but anet decided the problem was damage, so now nerfing the distance is pretty much out of the question.

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

D/F is…. I don’t know. Haven’t tried it yet.

D/F is the last airbender when he achieves spiritual perfection. It’s absolute balance between the weapon sets.

To fix phantasms all they have to do is fix signet of illusions and make it pulse application every second while fixing the amount of health that it actually gives instead of giving each phantasm more than 5-6k health.

Chaosky.5276:

Eh, Eruption is pretty easy to dodge when you have the timing down, and burning isn’t terribly dangerous on its own. This spec’s great for point defense if no one dodges, sure, but otherwise the damage is less reliable than it would be with direct damage – and that’s saying something for staff eles.

To reiterate a tad, when you’re throwing down lots of AoE and defending a point, it becomes much harder to reliably dodge Eruption and stay on the point, and it only takes one hit from the skill to do more than 8k worth of bleeding. The fact that you can stack about 10 might constantly on the set means that even if burning is your only condition you’ll still be ticking for 600 something per second along with all your ambient aoe hits, which is not friendly for somebody who cannot remove it reliably, and eles can apply burning very frequently. Your Evasive Arcana will put 5 free seconds of burning on everything adjacent to you, just to give an example.

I have since switched to runes of Hoelbrak. Increases power and the x6 effect reduces incoming condition duration, so both the conditions I keep and the conditions my pet takes do less.

Might stacking is superior to fire magic traitline in pretty much every way. Evasive arcana is just too good to pass up for most builds right now, and will continue to be so until other traits are improved or until it’s nerfed some more.

1. Standard bunker stats, but put a shaman amulet on instead of cleric, and change your runes to nightmare.

2. Learn how to stack conditions with different rotations/evasive arcana.

3. Profit. A lot of people don’t expect condi damage from eles and they’re half dead by the time they remember to cleanse conditions. Rangers (with empathic bond) and other eles are going to be your only main problem. This kind of setup is great for holding points because the damage is relatively well hidden until they’ve taken a lot of it. When facing necros simply hold out on your big burn stack until they’ve used their heal slot.

I haven’t had a problem with focus yet. My only issue is the mediocre damage from flame wall and recharge on gale in comparison to updraft. It stacks might rather well considering it doesn’t seem like a specialty set (especially with evasive arcana), has great CC, and amazing point control. Considering maybe 75% of d/d’s damage comes from the mainhand, the only thing you’re really missing out on with d/f is the mobility from RtL.

I feel even more OP running d/f than d/d, to be honest. It’s absolutely brutal 1v1; that range advantage people have over d/d is something d/f can simply laugh at.

They need to make Signet of Renewal’s passive affect Ranger and Pet. This will compensate while moving the skill into the realm of truly useful utilities.

misterdevious.6482:

Tips:

1. Frost Shield stacks duration when you reapply it… so apply it back to back to back and have 10+ seconds of frozen fun.

I have never had this experience. I think you should retest.

Durzlla.6295:

i’m going to give you this tidbit of info… USE A DAZE OR STUN ON THE PET, it shuts them up instantly and makes them easy pickings, i know i’ve gotten into so many downed ranger vs ranger battles underwater, won every one of them because i’d wait until after they use their lightning flash before using Lick Wounds and then daze their pet so he can’t heal them… so many “Wtf how u outheal? hax!!”

I’ve had my pet be dazed, knocked back, sunk, etc and still had it come back to keep on ressing, at least underwater.

Arcane abilities are.. alright. Their synergy with fields is decent and the auto crits are nice for proccing other effects, but they just don’t have the oopmh factor that cantrips do, and cantrips have even more potential for synergy imo. Arcane skills need improvement. You can certainly use them, but you won’t get results that are as good as an ele who uses at least mostly cantrips.

Rump Buffalo.2594:

you could always…CC the pet… or something

Doesn’t work quite as well as you’d think underwater. The pet will continue to res the ranger even if you down it during execution of the skill. There is a huge difference in AI between land and underwater combat.